Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

The Peanut Butter Solution - Our most nonsensical to date

Happy 400th episode to us and we go big this week with a perfect Nonsensical November pick.
It's a truly baffling experience that is nearly impossible to dissect but does feature a bevvy of bonkers content from start to finish. Arguably, no other movie is so far from being grounded in reality that this is an absolute must-watch for fans of nonsensical plots.
With any mention of The Peanut Butter Solution, it can't be understated how bonkers the plot is. Essentially a child goes into a haunted house, gets so frightened that his hair comes out and then goes on a quest to get his hair to grow back. That all sounds fine and good for a Saturday afternoon made-for-tv kid's movie but this pile is SOOO much more than that. While it really can't be written here, the plot is absolutely unfathomable and is completely off the rails.
While the plot is bananas, it's not the only portion of this film that is nanners. The acting is at about 12 throughout by the lead, Michael (played by Mathew Mackay), his father (played by Michael Hogan from BSG fame) and the films "villain" Senor (Michel Maillot). Imagine Nic Cage at his Cageyest but without any of the talent. 
Tack on some unintelligible dialogue, a clash of good and bad production design, some horrendously bad directing advice ("Children love surrealism, right?"), Celine Dion and a possible crime-ring of children kidnappers to exploit the art industry and you've got a seriously excellent bad movie. Do not miss this movie.

King Ralph - Worse than being Henry VIII's wife

Inside lives a truly great film that delves into commentary about what it means to be a leader, the sacrifices one must make for their people, that no one should be judged by their appearance, and that anyone can truly be great. Unfortunately, it's all thrown aside for the sake of groan-inducing hi-jinx and jingoism. Yay....
King Ralph is a debacle. It's a horrendous stain on film-making and for only one reason - the "comedy". Imagine a mash-up of The King's Speech and C.H.O.M.P.S. and then throw your popcorn into the toilet and replace it with burnt toast. That's your cinematic viewing experience here. It's atrociously annoying, horrendously offensive at points and trips over it's own wit to pickup a pratfall. Expect your living room to be as silent as all of England when they learned Hollywood planned to eliminate the entire Royal Family in effigy.
Despite all that, there does live a truly great film inside of King Ralph, it's just hard to see. The acting is spectacular (a monument should be erected in every city, town and village to Sir Peter O' Toole), Goodman is TRULY funny when he's allowed to be by the stifling hi-jinx, and the production design is top notch. Remnants of the source material (the more satirical elements, at least) still manage to come across and still hold weight. They are just mired down by all the gags to keep this thing from being "good".
It's still a do, but it's not a do in the classic sense of a bad movie. It's the "good" in this film that you'll want to watch it for. The "bad" is like sticking your head in the garbage can.

Rambo: Last Blood - Better Kill Them Twice

Rambo rides off into the sunset (or dies in a pool of blood) but takes many, many, many people down with him on the way. It's a bloody, sticky, mess that will fall into the either love-it or hate-it folly.
So let's get this out of the way first - Rambo: Last Blood looks like absolute crap. Whomever shot this should be sacked. Very few shots look even as good as most DTV films and each vehicle scene features completely unnecessary rear-projection. Why in the hell does this have to look so awful?
Secondly, it's biggest flaw for Rambo fans is a particular scene that, yes, sets up the plot but is SO far out of character and John's skills and how he's managed all of his strategies that is just so out of place and dumb that may ruin the next twenty minutes of the film for you.
However, if you can get past those two things, this thing is hot crap. At no point does John turn into "I'm getting too old for this" or even a Gran Turinoesque Clint Eastwood. John craves and thrives when there is trouble to be had and it doesn't matter how old he gets. There's some decent dialogue that reinforces how John looks at the world and then how he proceeds to end bad guy's lives. It's a blast. 
It should also be mentioned that Stallone is great here. He's just as action packed as he always has been. He doesn't look like doing this will cause him to spend a week covered in Ben-Gay and at no point does he seem to be a lover of Worther's Originals. When he punches a guy, it seems like it will hurt real bad or possibly cause his fist to enter your body in holes you didn't have before. 
So while it has a few issues, it's still a blast and if you come into a Rambo film expecting to see something else here, we're not sure what you're doing with your life. It's a do.

Baby Geniuses - Parents Just Don't Understand

We all love babies right? Now what if we replaced babies with 6 year old kids with stunted growth and pasted their heads onto the bodies of little people? No? How about some CGI lip-syncing so they can talk? No? Ok, well how about stuffing a child actor into a bin of soiled undies? Yes, please.
So Baby Geniuses and it's followup are two of the lowest rated movies that have ever existed, despite the overwhelming amount of fake 10/10 reviews on IMDB, it still was a box-office smash. Why? Because people love babies! Babies can do no wrong! Even when they are covered in dookie, murdering bums, imitating John Travolta and keeping the secrets of life to themselves out of selfish dickery!
I'm not really sure if people who went to this for love of babies actually paid attention to what these awful children are actually up to.
On the other side of the coin, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd are evil because we're told their evil even though their actions and motivations are parallels of our "hero adults" Kim Cattrell and Peter MacNicol which only reveals more about these horrific little baby monsters.
While, we can't in good faith say that Baby Geniuses is a do for fans of crappy films, it's so close to being one of the greatest bad movies ever if only it could have stuck with babies doing karate and diving into dumpsters, but sadly tries to put the good-feelers into it's clearly moronic intended audience. Do or don't, what the hell do we care. Our souls have been eroded by dancing babies.

2019 Spooktacular - The Pumpkinhead Reboot

This week on the show we thoroughly review everything important this Halloween with regards to crummy movies. Special guest Tucker comes into the studio and delivers the laughs with his "beardy" style of humor.
We review - 
Pumpkinhead (1988)
The Gate (1987)
C.H.U.D. (1984)
Sometimes They Come Back (1991)
The Lighthouse (2019)
Satanic Panic (2019)
Child's Play (2019)
The Lodgers (2017)
We write up the reboot of Pumpkinhead; "Pumpkinhead Goes to Sturgess", we solve the homeless heating problems, Tucker bans walls, how to lose a pie-eating contest, washed-up pirate ships, and a special Halloween round of "Pop Quiz, Hotshot".
Sit back and enjoy our 2019 Spooktacular episode!

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Weird Gay Adventure

Freddy is back and this time he lulls us to sleep with whale song and LBGTQ social commentary! It begs the ultimate question - does Freddy actually appear in this movie?
Freddy 2 is an absolute bonkers experience and through-out is a complete and utter-turd. At no point does it make sense that it was a commercial success and likely should have destroyed the Freddy franchise (and thus would have prevented the LOTR trilogy from happening) but somehow was a massive win for New Line and kept the doors open for another ten years. I guess that really states to the allure of Mr. K.
Yet it can only exist in 1 of 2 ways, both of which have problems:
1) It's an allegory for the traumas/dangers of being a closeted homosexual in the homophobia of the 80s drummed up by Reagan's AIDS debacle.2) It's all a dream from start to finish in which Freddy takes 90 minutes to murder one kid.
1 can't be it, because it then opens up a ton of plot holes with Freddy's powers and if he even exists in the movie or not. Was Jesse just using Freddy as a scape-goat for his "villanous" homosexual ways? He's just a copy-cat? But then how is it that he explodes a parakeet? Riddle me that, guys? Then on the other side, if Freddy IS possessing Jesse then how is it he's murdering teens when they're awake?
2 can't be it, because the producers and writers say that is not the case. If we can't trust the people who wrote it then who can we trust? The walls of reality are crumbling!
Maybe this film does break the rules of our universe and now we are all living in Freddy's nightmare? Either way, you should probably check out Freddy 2 and try to help us make some sense out of the damn thing.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Frampton Comes Dead

So it turns out that Peter Frampton sucks - oh you knew that already? The Brothers Gibb surround themselves by people who can't sign and play as well as they do and let everyone else drag them into the depths of garbage. But Barry's hair looks amazing, at least.
Sgt Pepper's on it's face is a "do not do" movie before it even starts - you don't cover The Beatles unless you really are supremely talented, which The Bee Gees completely are, but the problem is that they allowed other people to be involved. You've got George Burns, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Peter Nicholas (yeah, who?), Donald Pleasance, Stargard and Frankie Howerd all covering Beatles tracks. Look, only a few people get to do that and none of you are qualified. Stop it! Stop IT!
And leading the "not-good-at-stuff" is the constant O-faced, Peter Frampton. He is the absolute worst. Consistently off-key and when "on" his face is off. His "acting" (he doesn't utter a single line of dialogue) is about as good as his mouth guitar.
As a whole, Sgt. Pepper's is a complete disaster and nothing works within it's pieces. Yet it doesn't have any of the yummy crummy goodness like The Apple, Breakin 2 or Can't Stop the Music. It has its occasional moments but you have to look at Peter Frampton to get to those points so its not really a fair trade-off.

Druids - When do the druids show up?

Christopher Lambert dons the worst hair we've ever seen and leads an uprising against the Romans only to ultimately accomplishing nothing and dies off screen. There's nothing good about this film.
Zzzz....Oh I'm sorry. You caught me napping after watching Druids. What did I miss? Oh, nothing. Absolutely nothing? Ok. I'll move on to something else.
Seriously, this movie sucks. Even for fans of Lambert's nonsense. Nothing happens. It's such a crappy Braveheart knock-off but fails in that it the world has not changed at the end of the movie. He doesn't even give the Romans that much grief. It's about as much grief as buying a $30 worth of lottery scratch tickets and finding 10 of them that are worth $1. Whoa the grievance...
Oh yeah - where the hell are the damn druids?!?! 
Seriously, don't spend a second of your time watching Druids. Go plant a flower. Eat a sandwich. Read a book about Gaul. Do ANYTHING but watch Druids.

Black Dog - The best bad truckin' movie ever

Patrick Swayze says Dalton was a weiner and gifts us the pyschopathic, blood-lusting, and man of the road - Jack Cruise. Along the way Meatloaf delivers his best, but still manages to get Asahi Guy murdered and bankrupts his own villainy scheme before it gets started.
Lets just get this out of the way - Black Dog is fantastic and is one of the few shining examples of perfectly bad in every way. Every bit of it is inept from the music, the casting, the script, the acting, the directing and the editing and has the "it" factor on all those elements for bad movie fans. It's a glorious seam-less mess that you couldn't set out to do such a bad job and have it work so well together. It's stunningly perfect and beautiful and a complete train-wreck.
My next paragraph would like to be - "The best part of Black Dog is..." but I seriously can't say that. As soon as I think of something, say Meatloaf's character Red's seriously flawed villainy scheme (stealing his own stuff, make deal for stuff, rinse, repeat - never make any money) is instantly thrust into competition against say Asahi Guy's lack of steering or braking in the face of impending spolsion death or Jack Cruise showing his family how murder is just a darn good family activity or the wonderfully terrible ATF and FBI agent dynamics. There's no "best part" of this movie because it's ALL best part.
So stop what you're doing, fire this thing up whether alone or with friends (you'll just end up watching it again anyways), try not to fall off the couch with laughter and enjoyment and most importantly - do NOT be like Jack Cruise - I prefer breathing, thank you.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo - or How To Save the World

Let's face it - this movie stinks and rules. There's so little happening but no one notices because it's masked by CONSTANT break dancing. It's wall-to-wall. There might be more more dance/musical numbers in this than Caberet and Chicago and Grease combined. Now that might scare off the casual bad-movie goer who is here for movies staring shirtless men with guns, but don't be afraid - this thing is electric dog-poo on fire.
It's really something of a special deal when a movie crams this much non-diegetic, metaphorical story-telling using dance as the device and still manages to contain as much mind-boggling nonsense within those dance sequences. For most of us, we just check out during dance numbers as they are just a showcasing of people's abilities to move their butt around, but this is not that. There's a constant tone of bonkers throughout these numbers and must be watched; especially the surrounding extras.
The acting is hilarious, with two non-leads stealing every scene. The actors who played Lucia and Rhonda were both so bad that they had to be over-dubbed and the dub is absolutely laughable. Try not to fall out of your chair when Lucia helps Turbo bust out of the hospital.
It's an absolute spectacle of ineptitude, all while still being the most competent film Golan and Globus ever put together - and they did it in less than six months.
Breakin 2': Electric Boogaloo is an absolute must do for its historical importance but beyond that - it's just a damn good time.